Wednesday, July 05, 2006

By Gyan Pathak

The Planning Commission of India, while making approach paper for the 11th Five Year Plan (2007 - 12), toying with the idea of stepping up growth rate by 1.5 per cent through making certain changes and interventions in several key areas of our economy. Our economy is already poised to post a growth rate of 9 - 9.5 per cent of the GDP by the terminal year of the Tenth Plan. Therefore, it seems possible for the Planning Commission to set a higher target of growth to 9.5 per cent in the Eleventh Plan as against the current level of seven percent. All the indications emanated from the Planning Commission, which is chaired by the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh himself and de-facto run by the Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, suggest that even this plan would over emphasize on achieving “growth rate” as against “equitable growth rate” as it has been done in the Eighth (1992 - 97), Ninth (1997 - 2002) and the Tenth (2002 - 07) Five Year Plan.

Our planners seems to have failed to take note of or intentionally ignoring the fact that the common people of this country has all along suffering the approach of giving over emphasis to inequitable “growth rate” since 1992, when India introduced New Economic Policy of globalization, privatization, liberalization and free market. The spread of poverty and unemployment is the greatest problem for India, which can be tackled only by an approach of equitable economic growth, but it is not the major concert of our self-interested government and its leadership.

Even last week, it was reported that the Asia Pacific Human Development Report 2006 of the United Nations revealed a glaring fact that unemployment level in India and South Asia had remained static since 1993. It is despite the fact that trade has increased from 20 to 34 per cent of the GDP during the period under consideration.

Joblessness and poverty are the chronic problems in India. Moreover, the data available in this regard are debatable. There is a widespread impression among the common people as well as intelligentsia, not only of India but from all over the world, that India's economic growth has not reduced poverty and unemployment but has worsened the situation by inequitable distribution of the fruits of economic growth. There is a reason to believe this because of discrepancies in the NSS and NSA data. There seems to be a pattern of politics even in our government's efforts of estimating poverty and unemployment. For example, our government insists that there has been improvement in the poverty alleviation and unemployment scenario in the era of New Economic Policy, while the data released by the World Bank, United Nations etc give us different pictures. It is all because of the different methodologies of estimating poverty and unemployment. And methodologies are framed to suit the need of the institutions, political or apolitical.

Discussions are going on in the Planning Commission to frame and reframe the draft of the approach paper with the orientation or mind set to push further the process of economic reform on the line drafted by the World Bank. The approach is too much capitalistic, in which there is room only for social welfare or charity etc for the deprived class, while there is little room for equitable distribution of the fruits of economic growth lately witnessed by our country.

Is it a bad idea to entertain the grievances of the poor and the unemployed, summed up as deprived people of this country, that they need equitable distribution of the fruits of economic growths in lieu of charity, welfare or dole schemes? Our planners fail to understand that “Welfare” and “Equitable” are entirely two different approaches. Our Prime Minister and Chairman of the Planning Commission insisted on “economic reform with human face” while the country actually needed “Equitable Economic Reform”. The rulers and the big want to shower only a little bit of kindness to preserve their “human face” for their self-interest as our Prime Minister has suggested. Through this approach one can save a substantial amount of wealth for oneself while parting with small quantity with the deprived. They simply do not want equitable distribution of the income.

The state of affairs in the Planning Commission suggests that the approach in the next Five Year Plan would be to push globalization, liberalization, privatization and a free market economy. The interventions and policy changes that the Commission is bent upon to along with our political leadership, are therefore scheduled in this direction.

It is in this direction that our leadership has been following the prescription of the World bank. They brazenly use the words “rightsizing” when the really want to retrench or fire the staff or labour force, “rationalization” when they really want a hike in the prices, taxes, and other charges, “reform” when they really want to give benefit to the privileged, etc. In this process the society has been becoming increasingly exploitative. And there is a scheduled labour reform which is not intended to give benefit to the labour force, but to the employers.